Eastwood's Coffman caps standout career at state meet

Eastwood senior Luke Coffman capped off a stellar cross-country career with a 43rd-place finish at the Division II state meet Nov. 2 at National Trail Raceway in Hebron.
        Coffman finished the course in 16:41.2 after taking 34th (17:16) in the same event last season. He was a two-time Northern Buckeye Conference champion, a three-time district champion and a two-time academic All-Ohio performer during his career at Eastwood.
        “He had a great season,” Eastwood coach Stephanie Sims said. “He improved his PR (personal record) by 10 seconds and he moved to the No. 3 position in the Eastwood cross-country runners’ top-20 list. He improved his average time this season by over 20 seconds. Luke is blessed with natural talent, but he also uses all resources to get better.”
        Woodmore senior Paul Koenig competed in the D-III boys meet at National Trail Raceway and finished 102nd in 17:43.3. The Wildcats’ girls team finished 12th out of 20 teams in the D-III meet, with 312 points.
        Coffman earned his second straight trip to the state meet by taking fourth individually (16:08.5) at the regional meet.
        “Luke is a natural leader who leads by example,” Sims said. “He does all the right things as far as workouts go, and offseason work. He puts his all into every workout to get better. As a coach moving forward, I can always tell younger runners that Luke improved every season by putting in the work. He lifted in the summer and at least three times a week during the season. He did optional runs on Sundays.
        “Hopefully, other kids realize that hard work will pay dividends.”
        Koenig’s time at the state meet fell short of his performance at regionals, where he finished 14th in 16:41.3 and bested his career-best time by seven seconds.
        Koenig, who helped Woodmore’s boys soccer team win a conference championship a year ago, did not play soccer this fall.
        “He wanted to dedicate his senior year to cross-country and see how far he could get,” Woodmore cross-country coach Mike Moreno said. “He had a very consistent season, especially early on. He was running 16:50s in the majority of our invitationals. He had a little bit of a slump toward the end, but we rested him some to make sure he had some fresh legs for the postseason. We knew he had all the talent to make it to the state meet.”
        In the D-III girls race, Woodmore junior Ava Beam had the team’s best time after finishing 46th in 19:57.0. Junior Olivia Thatcher placed 49th (20:05.9) for the Wildcats, followed by freshmen Olivia Vogelpohl (63rd, 20:20.5) and Jordan Beam (137th, 22:14.7) and sophomore Kristen Davis (174th, 24:27.1).
        Sophomore Angela Dickerson, who took 177th in 25:12.8, and junior Julia Cable (179th, 26:54.9) did not figure in the team scoring for Woodmore, which finished second behind Genoa at the NBC meet this season.
        “I knew going in we were ranked 13th in the state,” Moreno said. “But with how our girls have been performing of late, I was hoping for a top-10 performance. We were on the outside of that, but still not bad. They were disappointed because they felt they could have run faster and ended up little bit higher. Ava was disappointed because she felt they let me down, but they didn’t let me down.”
        Moreno, who has been the Wildcats’ cross-country coach for 12 years, said he was retiring at the end of this season. He also coached track at Woodmore Schools from 1999-2017.
        “I just want to say how proud my assistant coach, Lacy Seamans and I are with how the season ended up,” Moreno said. “The dedication from the girls – from summer their goal was to make it to state – and my boys team made it to regionals for the first time since 2014.”